mini-moan: it's gone everywhere

This post skirts around the issue of false advertising in a way, more precisely product labelling.

Today I decided to have some pickled red cabbage with my tea and opened a new jar of a brand I had never previously purchased. This wasn't some cheap Tesco value or even Waitrose Essential product, no this was the good stuff by Garners (well the hefty price implied it was good).

So I whacked the lid with a spoon as years of idleness has left me weak, feeble and barely capable of opening the jar. I stuck in my fork, pulled it out, and to my dismay there were but a few scrawny pieces of cabbage. Bewildered by this I once again stuck in my fork and stirred expecting resistance, I'm use to resistance when I stick it in, but there was none and it became clear that my jar of pickled cabbage was more pickled than cabbage, by which I mean mostly vinegar.

So I wondered, legally what proportion of the jar actually has to be cabbage in order to label it as pickled cabbage? Based on my experience it should have been labelled vinegar with a cabbage ganish!

Logically it would need to be at the minimum 51% cabbage so the majority of the jar was cabbage, but the experts at The Laboratoire Condiments and Accompaniments department, who also dabble in Preserves, Conserves and Pickles and are the only individuals in the world that actually know the difference between a Preserve and a Conserve, assure me that this was not the case.

Therefore Garners pickled red cabbage does not get TheGuyWhoMoansCalledMatthew seal of quality.

announcement: good with hands

Christmas is just around the corner so it is the perfect time to launch a new product from The Laboratoire.
For those of you that have friends and loved ones that you wish would just go away you can give them a present that says 'Please never speak to me again, I clearly don't like you!'.
Inspired by the fad of giving people $h17 that they will never actually see such as a plot of land on the moon, a distant star or a herd of Reindeer I've launched my own scam heart warming appeal.

You, that's right, you, can now 'Adopt a Laboratoire', for just £50 you can help keep The Laboratoire turning out life shortening enhancing inventions and insightful critiques at semi-random intervals. In return for your donation you'll receive a unique and custom made gift pack which you can present to your beloved on Christmas day detailing the wonderful work carried out at The Laboratoire and a signed* photograph of The Laboratoire** in a beautiful presentation box***

For illustrative purposes only

* Signature of some random tramp we gave a half eaten Turkey sandwich.
** Photograph illustrative of The Laboratoire.
*** Stocks of the presentation box are limited and may be substituted for an envelope that has been used as a coaster.

mini-moan: man is a many layered beast.

As requested by John I have corrected the number of apostrophes in this post

The final touches are still being made to the epic post, so here is a mini moan to help ease the pain.

You may know Im not the biggest fan of Waitrose product's and thi's i's never more so than when it comes to their fruit. But occasionally Waitrose produce's an edible, if insanely priced product such as it's Party Croissants.
These delectable's are in packs of 12 containing 2 flavour's, the deliciou's mushroom and the mediocre ham. So by now you are wondering what the purpose of this post is. Have I purchased share's in Waitrose and this i's an attempt to increase my wealth? Idiot, Waitrose doesn't have share's.
No, the problem i's with the packaging, you see these two different varietie's are each packaged in a plastic tray, and these two tray's are layered one atop the other, with the more deliciou's mushroom cream filled one's at the bottom. Annoyingly, layered in such a way that all of the croissant's on the bottom layer become stuck to the underside of the plastic tray on the upper layer, often falling onto the floor whilst the upper layer is lifted free of its plastic film.
ARGH!!!
It seem's that whilst mankind has mastered the art of filling tiny pastrie's with flavoured creamy goo, it has not yet mastered the art of placing a piece of cardboard between two plastic tray's, or even better moulding plastic protrusion's into the lower tray which lift's the upper layer slightly above the creamy goodne's's.

announcement: fasten your trousers.

I'm currently bunkered down in The Laboratoire working on an insightful post that is sure to make you re-evaluate your life and question every choice you've ever made. Such a post takes time to congeal so to keep your juices from bursting out at an inappropriate time I've included an extract of that which will be unveiled at some future point.

So fasten your trousers.

... masochistically ...

WOW!  Bet you just exploded, and that's just a very small sample of what is to come.

food: you say ping...

... I say pong

I'm a big fan of all things garlic, on occasion I could probably be mistaken for a Frenchmen, and I often cook up a batch of garlic butter king prawns. Garlic prawns and fresh bread is hard to beat.
But the problem with cooking up a tasty garlic based dish is having to handle the Garlic, everybody is well aware of my issue with Asparagus and Garlic isn't much better in that regard.
The main issue is crushing of the cloves, all manner of garlicy juice absorbed deep into the very core of my hands and it just wont shift. I've tried everything short of scrubbing my hands with wire wool, I even resorted to asking a Frenchman how he removed the odour of Garlic from his body, and his response was to rub my hands on a Zinc tap which proved to be as effective as the French army (or Lithuanian Air Force) . If you are interested the exact phrasing of the question was 'Hey, you're French! You must know how to get the smell of Garlic off your hands?'.

But finally I have solved the problem with the newest creation from the Advanced Technology Department at The Laboratoire; Garlic_Gloves.
These multi-use gloves manufactured from fabric coated in a custom Garlic repellent film specially developed for use in Garlic_Gloves by experts in the field of odour repellent films at The Laboratoire are guaranteed to repel all Garlic juices.

On sale immediately at a mere £10 for a right Garlic_Glove, £20 for a left Garlic_Glove (because being left handed is wrong and left handed people should be punished for their Satanic ways) or £50 for a matching set containing 1 x Right Garlic_Glove and 1 x Left Garlic_Glove.

mini-moan: silver lining?

Firstly, this is post number 150. Big up The Guy Who Moans Called Matthew Massive!

So, I was perusing the Deli-counter at Waitrose, in fact I was the only person at the deli counter and about to purchase some items. But then, suddenly, swooping in like some sort of mad bat an old lady jumped in front of me to enquire about the location of pre-packed Salami. I thought this couldn't take more than a few seconds so didn't mention anything, though obviously I was boiling over with rage and eyeing up the cheese wire!
Then, to my amazement, a long conversation about various Salami available at the counter began, the next thing I know the counter assistant started slicing huge amounts of Salami. I stood there bewildered, was this an evolution of the 'Chat and Cut'? Literally a chat about Salami followed by cutting Salami.

Apparently during this outrageous behaviour by a member of the 'greatest generation' two women appeared at the counter looking at cheeses. This now fairly lengthy queue provoked a member of staff to jump into action and reduce the congestion that was now forming at the deli. Unaware of who was first in line (clue it was me) the assistant asked who was next, to my complete surprise one of the new arrivals chimed up "I'm next" to which I had to finally take exception.

Perhaps these 'cutters' were concerned that the 5 year matured cheddar might suddenly expire in the 5 minutes it would take for me to purchase some coleslaw, or that the Danish Blue would become a tad too mouldy for consumption?

daily life: words cost nothing

Being a thoughtful and kind individual I like to make my Laboratoire a comfortable and enjoyable place to be for the numerous Laboratoire staff. That's why the Laboratoire is home to a fine dining facility and a number of kitchens stocked with superb beverages and snacks, there are even refrigerators so Laboratoire staff can keep food and drinks from home safe, and if they choose to store butter in a Laboratoire fridge they can guarantee that it won't disappear.
But it turns out that the Laboratoire kitchen is not the safe and convenient storage facility that I hoped it would be and the 'Laboratoire Advanced Cleaning Crew' have a habit of removing food from the fridges and breaking peoples mugs and other beverage holders. Wander over to the Laboratoire kitchen and you will see an array of chipped and cracked mugs or Laboratoire employees sobbing as they clean up the shards of a mug that was lovingly crafted by one of their children as a thoughtful birthday gift.

Accidents happen, though it seems like the Laboratoire cleaners may have been sticking their fingers in the butter based on the regularity of them dropping things, but never once will they stick a post-it to the broken remains with a note of condolence. I remember once hearing a terrific noise and when I next went to retrieve my mug found that only 75% of it that remained on the mug shelf.
Ronnie Corbett would be spinning in his grave (and if you are reading this after June 9th 2014 he will be) to know that sorry seems so hard to say.

mini-moan: what ever happened to bus conductors?

Being a sad and lonely individual I have to cook for myself and with the price of ready meals for one being so high I often have to cook from scratch. So I scour the shelves of Waitrose, Tesco and the Co-Operative Eagle-eyed watching for the reduced labels so I can afford to buy the ingredients for my often bizarre and rarely edible creations.

Today it was time for a cut price prawn stir-fry and every time I use the wok I ask myself the following question;

What fecking idiot at the Central Design Institute for Advance Wok Design decided to construct the handles for my wok entirely out of metal?

I'm assuming that there must be some ludicrously named 'institute' for those that design woks, there's an institute for everything nowadays.
Perhaps I'm the only person in the world that noticed that metal conducts heat and that when cooking a stir fry heat is in abundance. Therefore handles that conduct heat combined with heat equals hot handles, and hot handles plus hands equals hot hands, and hot hands equals me shouting obscenities at the top of my voice.

politics: like an onion

I'm an incredibly opinionated individual and pretty stuck in my ways, but I like to think that those opinions don't do any real harm.
For example I don't like black shoes or white trainers, and I believe only w@nkers wear jeans with holes in them, but in the grand scheme of things these opinions don't do any harm.
What really gets my goat is when politicians and groups attempt to impose their views on a nation. I might not be a homosexual but does that mean I should seek political power with the intention of limiting gay rights? I'm  not a pregnant woman so I certainly shouldn't be able to make abortion illegal.
These people can have their opinions, if you don't feel abortion is right that's your opinion, but you cannot impose that view on others, you can't fight a political campaign and use the hatred of others to gain you political authority.
Perhaps democracy doesn't work because the world is a frightened and idiotic place?
I bet some of you out there think I am thinking of Mitt Romney or Republicans, and these comments are certainly applicable to a man that seems to have changed so many of his platforms in the hope of obtaining the US presidency. But it's more general than that, I think political power will always appeal to those wanting to impose their views, often extremist but not always. Joe Average couldn't give a crap and has no motivation to become Prime Minister, President or Chancellor because it's a lot of work, but for somebody that wants to enforce their views on others it sure is an attractive and rewarding aspiration.

Vote tgwmcm for President of the Earth.

mini-moan: take no for an answer.

I've just been completing an online survey for shirts and giggles. When you are as bored and lonely as me sometimes a radio button is your closest friend.
The first question presented asked whether I watched one of about 15 different sports, anybody that knows me will not be surprised to hear I never watch sports.
So having answered NO to every sport the following questions were displayed, they are not word for word accurate but close enough for the purposes of an internet moan.

What digital devices do you watch each sport on?
Obviously none as I've just said I watch know sports.
Then it asks

Which sports do you record to watch later?
None, I watch no sports.

Which of these devices do you use to compliment your viewing of sport?
NONE!!!
Followed by.

How important would each of these XBOX Live features be to enhancing your experience of watching sport?
Why do you keep asking me these questions?

Surely it isn't beyond our technology to analyse the response to the first question and selectively screen out subsequent questions that will just massively annoy the people you are hoping will complete your survey?

mini-moan: loose ends.

Buying new shoes really annoys me, I have a high instep and wide feet so it's a bit of a challenge to find shoes that fit comfortably, though that is more of an inconvenience than an annoyance. What really annoys me when buying shoes is that shoe factories are obviously staffed by morons that don't know how to lace up shoes. Every single pair of shoes on the shelves are laced backwards, half laced, or sometimes not even laced at all. So I have to spend 5 minutes re-lacing every pair of shoes before I try them on. When coupled with most shoes being uncomfortable I can lace up 5, 6 or more pair of shoes in a single fitting.

Surely the first question on the application form for working at a shoe factory should be 'Can you lace a pair of shoes?', and the very first task at the shoe factory recruitment day should be a practical shoe lacing session.

Yet it seems this is not the case, perhaps shoe factories demand that their staff incorrect lace shoes during manufacture, but any self-respecting human would sooner go hungry than be forced to incorrectly lace thousands of shoes in their lifetime, so by science I can conclude shoe factories are indeed staff by morons or worshippers of Satan.

Special Event: so there you have it.

It's sure hasn't been fun these last few years has it? There's been rotten fruit on the back seat of cars parked badly outside a branch of the Halifax. Silly shaped cucumbers too large or too small to fill a hole. There have been strings and sacks that just won't stay together and special guests that never turned up. Computers that just don't work and toxic events that resulted in a massive relocation. Don't even get me started on the meaty feasts that turned out not to be.

So how am I going to punctuate all of this and mark over 2000 views of my blog? Then what am I going to do for my 150th post (this is number 144). The answer is pretty much nothing, I've run out of steam. Yes there are things that are sure to annoy me over the coming days, weeks or months, but the longer I go on the less I can be bothered.

It just seems a bit pointless at the moment.

mini-moan: give it a good squeeze.

Balls can be tricky things, sometimes you need to grab hold of one but can't get a good grip. That's the problem with round things, and the bigger they are the harder it is to maintain purchase.
So that's why Bowling Balls have holes in them, once you stick your fingers in a hole (or three) things become much easier, but sometimes the holes are too big and your fingers just flop around with no sensation, or too small which means you can get your fingers in just fine but trying to get them out can lead to all manner of trouble.
It always annoys me massively when Bowling alleys, who's only job is to ensure people throw balls at sticks, completely fail on the hole front. My nearest Bowlplex have the worst holes I've ever stuck my fingers into, some of the holes in the balls are so small that you'd practically need a microscope to see them, were it not for my fingers becoming rather jammed I'd have thought they'd forgotten to drill any, so you end up going for a ball that is too large and cumbersome, clinging onto it like Wil Wheaton trying to hold onto his last shred dignity.
I just wish I could find a couple of balls that feel comfortable in my hands.

daily life: last shred of dignity

The work on building a new Laboratoire after 'The Incident' has progressed well, I am now well into the furnishing and fixings stage so today I headed to my local boot fair to see what bargains I could obtain for fitting out the Laboratoire.

As you can probably imagine the Laboratoire works on a lot of highly secret projects and along with such projects a huge amount of sensitive paperwork is produced. So top of my shopping list was a shredder to ensure that none of these papers fall into the wrong hands. To my delight I saw 2 shredders available the first a standard shredder which simply wasn't capable of safely disposing of documents as sensitive as those produced by the Laboratoire, the second was a cross-cut shredder which would provide the appropriate level of protection. After a short haggling session where the seller guaranteed the shredder was in full working order I handed over my £2 and toddled off with my new security device.

Eager to start disposing of my sensitives I popped them into the shredder, I waited for the sound of 'peace of mind' to erupt but there was only the sound of disappointment (which I've grown used to). The shredder did not work, I even had the chief engineer from the 'Laboratoire Advanced Technology Division' poke at it with a screwdriver for several minutes but to no avail.

 I am absolutely outraged that anybody would sell an item at a boot fair that they clearly knew did not function, especially as they proclaimed so forcefully that it was fully functional whilst I negotiated the price. No wonder I hate humanity if this is how they behave.
It'll take me 200 days of clicking through to Kelkoo from TopCashback to recoup my loses, and that assumes a 100% tracking rate, if you believe that could happen you are truly living in a wonderland.

daily life: something to say

I'm big on making outlandish statements, I have numerous theories and rules which I trot out from time to time and I just love to refute other people comments.
That's basically all this blog is, a series of outlandish statements about daily situations in which I complain about others and the stupid things that they do.

But what really annoys me is when people ask me to back-up my clearly outlandish statements, to provide evidence proving my point is correct. If I make a claim such as 'Only homosexual men wear black shoes' and somebody asks me where my scientific basis for that statement is they are merely embarrassing themselves and showing their own stupidity (everybody knows straight men only wear brown shoes).

Somebody please just give throw me a bone.

food: trused-up

Don't worry reader the picture above is nothing to be concerned about, well that's not strictly true, it's nothing sinister.
Today I decanted to my local Tesco Extra to purchase the final few ingredients for a curry, one of said ingredients was a bulb of garlic. I spent some time circling the store at one point proclaiming 'Am I stupid, I can't find garlic anywhere', I received a few strange looks.
When I was finally pointed to the garlic I couldn't quite comprehend that which I saw, at first I thought they obviously only sell garlic in packs of 2 or more which was annoying as I only needed one bulb, but as I lifted the sack to my face for inspection I discovered that the sack contained just one.
I can understand the need for a sack if storing two items, but this is completely unnecessary.
I can only guess that Tesco have had numerous requests from customers that they need to be able to swing their garlic around and Tesco felt that swinging a sack would provide the best end user experience.
I am certainly not saying that you can't have a great deal of fun with a sack, but a sack containing a single bulb of garlic is completely unnecessary.
This is made more ridiculous when examined in context, nowadays Tesco provides carrier bags that are designed to bio-degrade, they actually bio-degrade before you've even managed to get your shopping home often leaving a boot full of plastic confetti, and they want everybody to re-use their bags to help 'save the environment'. Well then, why on earth are they manufacturing garlic sacks? Surely the carbon footprint of that garlic sack is far larger than selling the garlic loose and the customer using one of those little clear plastic bags that Tesco already have to supply for the other vegetables?
Plus most bizarrely Tesco sell their "Chef's Choice" garlic in sacks of 1(49p) or 4(£1) and Organic garlic in sacks of 3 (90p), I found this bizarre, why not sell the "Chef's Choice" garlic loose for say 30p each and let the user choose however many they want?

mini-moan: denied the opportunity

Recently I ranted about ripen at home fruit that does anything but. Instead you spend days monitoring that nectarine or banana only for it to rot into compost when you look away.
Today I turn my intention to fruit that is the polar opposite, an example of this would be the Waitrose 'Perfectly Ripe' range which is more 'Perfectly Rotten, Perfect For Compost', though sometimes with Waitrose even their regular range of fruit is rotten before you leave the shop.
On Saturday I purchased a punnet of cherries, and with them being Waitrose they were far from cheap. Yet the very first cherry I removed from the punnet was dripping and rotten, the next also rotten, the one after home to a whole colony of mould, eventually I found a cherry that wouldn't have caused me severe digestive trouble and it tasted, well it had no taste at all.
I returned the cherries to Waitrose and with my refund I purchased 4 Pears, rather expensive golden jobbies imported from New Zealand, although the fact they came from New Zealand should have been the first warning they would be terrible, much like anything imported from New Zealand.
The first pear while massively disappointing was indeed 'Perfectly Ripe', the second '50% Rotten', the third '75% Rotten' and the final '25% Rotten'. With a success rate that low I don't know how they can use the term 'Perfectly Ripe' unless they mean for making White Lightening.

At least with 'Ripen at Home' I get the opportunity to live in hope for several days that my fruit will be ready, the enjoyment of inspecting the fruit and proclaiming 'Tomorrow will be the day, I will feast on various fruits' before the disappointment that is a rotten puddle of decayed fruit where before there was optimism. No, with 'Perfectly Ripe' you bypass the fun and head straight to disappointment town, much like the A34 when heading towards Didcot.

mini-moan: the decider

Today I had a bit of a lie in and didn't get out of bed until the dog woke me at 9:30am.
I looked out of the French doors into the garden, the sun was shining, the sky was blue, the weather was glorious. I really must make the most of this glorious day. What can I do? Where can I go?
Thinking felt like too much hard work so I ended up doing nothing, it might as well be raining.

mini-moan: the a is for 'illiterate'

Today I saw some marketing material which I believe was intended to convey the message of how versatile and flexible the companies product offering was. It may or may not have been worded 'All-around [redacted] for all your needs'.

Obviously the product is so large that it will envelop you which probably means it isn't "Brilliantly Simple", but don't worry I'm all over this and I'll go around to the marketing department and clarify the message they were trying to convey. 

It's nothing a bit of Tipex can't solve.

daily life: twice the entry.

Life is difficult, especially when sausage is involved. But fortunately there are clever people out there able to make our difficult and stressful lives simpler such as the person who invented the melon baller because carving melon into perfectly round bite-size balls was such a chore. I'm so glad I can now stick balls in my mouth with ease.
But then there are things that are designed to make your life easier but instead just annoy the crap out of you, such as for example the little flap on a film lid which is meant to help you pull out quickly but instead actually just rips off leaving half the lid behind, no matter how hard you try you just can't get purchase on the remaining flap and decide to push on through and the result is fluid flying all over the place making a terrible mess.
Or when you tug the string on a tea bag to help thoroughly squeeze all the juice from your sack (some people found that humorous) but it detaches leaving your bag floating helplessly in warm fluid.

These are the things that annoy me.

mini-moan: the 3 rs

If I were the type of individual to have friends and possibly arrange activities for said friends to participate in I may be slightly annoyed if several to many of those hypothetical friends were unable to attend the aforementioned hypothetical activity but rather than informing me in advance chose not to tell me they were busy until 3 days before when I asked them if they were still coming.
That certainly sounds like the type of thing that would annoy me.

It's certainly fortunate I don't have any friends and that I never arrange activities for them or it would be quite embarrassing.

Oh, and the 3 Rs are.

Resquested to attend.
Responded with availability.
Rudeness avoided.

mini-moan: half empty

This has mildly annoyed me for a while but lately it is starting to grate quite massively.
For some reason my mother never drinks to the bottom of her tea cup, she actually leaves about 2 mouthfuls of tea behind.That's particularly annoying because when you pick-up the 'empty' tea cups you end up spilling a mixture of mum slobber and tea on your high quality white DNA branded T-Shirt.
When questioned as to why she leaves tea behind (but never coffee) the answer is "It's cold". That's not even  scientifically possible, the tea she has consumed directly above the 'dregs' would have been colder than the tea beneath it. Why does this same issue not affect Coffee?
Maybe the next time I make her a tea I'll put exactly 2 mouthfuls of liquid into the cup and see if she leaves it untouched because it was 'cold'.

mini-moan: by the power

Something that has really bugged me for the last few weeks are the new Škoda adverts. As much as we all hate to admit Škoda are actually good cars now, well Škoda  are actually Volkswagon now but that's a different matter.
But some marketing moron decided that people still didn't respect the Škoda name and what they needed to do was trick everybody into thinking they weren't buying a Skoda but where actually buying a Schkoda. Now the smug bastard voicing the end of the Škoda advert goes all native like he's a master of the Czech tongue (I wish I could find some Czech tongue).
At least when Geoffrey Palmer proclaimed Vorsprung durch Technik at the end of the VW adverts he was clearly taking the piss, plus he really likes a Custard Tart.

mini-moan: bit shifting.

No, I'm not talking about binary operations because that would just be silly.
The other day I purchased some Innocent Orange Juice, personally I find Innocent products to be overrated and overpriced (my they are overpriced), but it was on special offer at just 90p for a bottle so it was actually about the cheapest jus available.
I had a choice between the smooth 'no bits' and the 'with bits' variety, and being a sophisticated individual I opted for with bits.
Upon pouring my first glass I realised my mistake, instead of the juice flowing smoothly into my glass it slopped out like a yoghurt that had been left in the sun for a month to become lumpier than a 13 year old dog.
At this point I realised when they say 'with bits' they really mean 'Orange juice without the bits removed plus all the bits we removed from the without bits juice also added'. This bottle must have had the bits from at least 10 bottles of juice added to it. I would have had more juice and fewer bits if I'd just eaten an orange.

To me this is outrageous, padding out the orange juice with all the waste products from the 'without bits' product is disrespecting customers and clearly a misrepresentation of the final product. If you can eat your glass of orange juice with a fork it is no longer juice.

:( : rule of three.

Good things happen to bad people

Well, good things certainly don't happen to me so I must be good.

What can go wrong will go wrong

I'm still waiting for something to go right.

Goodness begets more goodness

Then I must be doing something wrong.


Just once I'd like to be rewarded for innocuously stumbling my way through life. Perhaps I am doing it wrong? Maybe I should only care about myself? Maybe I should do whatever I want whenever I want? Be damned with the consequences, although the only consequence will probably be success and happiness.

 

announcement: it's that time again.

It seems like only yesterday I celebrated the

One Thousand View Question Answering Extravaganza!

And now my pointless, unnecessary, uninteresting and self aggrandising ramblings have accumulated just under 1700 views. That means I am soon to approach Two Thousand views, and obviously I'm going to celebrate that milestone as Two Thousand is a bigger number than One Thousand and I measure the value of things based on how big they are, well most things.

This time I will not be asking for my reader to contribute questions that I will answer hilariously, I think you've all learned far too much about me as it is. Instead I have something special planned and in a 'Watch Out! Beadles About' crossed with 'Noel's House Party' style event I will appear on the doorstep of a viewer and whisk them away for a guided tour of my new Laboratoire where they'll get to see where all my top secret research is conducted, tour my cobra training facility and much, much more.

So now might be the perfect time to install a moat and fill it with lava and crocodiles.

mini-moan: what's in a name.

I'm not a fan of our Duchy of Cornwall's range of expensive organic food, so far I've not had a single item from the range that I thought was any good. But today while browsing the shelves of Waitrose I saw a Duchy 'Sandringham Strawberry Yoghurt' for 25p instead of the usual 84p, how could I refuse.
Proudly displayed on the tub was 'Organic', Charlie has a bit of a thing for organic and I believe he only feeds Camilla organic hay (that one was unfair). I wouldn't be surprised if old Charlie brushed his teeth with a stick of organic Celery dipped in organic yoghurt.
But while reading the ingredients on the back of the tub I noticed 'flavouring*', and the asterisk explanation read 'Flavouring from approved non-organic ingredients'. So if the flavouring in this 'Organic' yoghurt isn't organic then how the hell can it be an organic yoghurt?
Shame on your Charlie, you've let me down, you've let Waitrose down and most importantly you've let yourself down.

Also, as the yoghurt was the least Strawberry flavoured I've ever eaten the individual that 'approved' the non-organic flavouring certainly wasn't me. This yoghurt isn't getting the 'tgwmcm' seal of approval.

mini-moan: unauthorised user - accessed denied.

They say an Englishmen's home is his castle, there is certainly no denying that you should feel safe and comfortable in your home, able to lock the door and keep the world out, your own personal fortress from the dangerous world in which we live.
While my new Laboratoire is under construction I am temporarily renting and what is really starting to annoy me is how the letting agent (or their 'trained workforce') feel they can just let themselves into the property whenever they wish. This morning I was informed that a plumber will enter the property on Monday to check the boiler is safe and on Tuesday they will let themselves in to 'inspect' the property. If I refuse they'll let themselves in anyway, I can't physically prevent them getting in as I'll be at work and they have a set of keys.

To me this is outrageous, I'm paying a large sum of money to live in this property, I'm probably paying the Landlord's mortgage, yet I have absolutely no privacy or rights. What if I was getting busy with a lady when the plumber bursts in to 'Check the pipes'? (Chance would be a fine thing) I guess it could be the most authentic porno ever made. Far more likely is I'd be eating cold baked beans straight from the tin while wearing nothing but my underpants.

mini-moan: turn it up to 'leven

Sometimes, well not me, but sometimes people gather in groups. It is common that when people gather in groups talking may occur, it's a concept that is alien to me but I read about it somewhere.

Where this falls apart is when somebody speaks really quietly. So quietly that you aren't actually sure they are talking but you're pretty sure they must be because their mouth is moving. It's of course possible that they are mouthing along with a song playing in their head. Perhaps they have a strange affliction that causes their mouth to move uncontrollably. These seem less likely than the possibility that they are just talking really quietly, so quietly that even Superman with his 'Super Hearing' would have to proclaim "What? Can you speak up please I haven't heard a word you've said".

Then you've got another group of people that just wont shut up. You are all stood jittering about (possibly desperate for the toilet) and one individual just keeps going on and on and on about something that you lost interest in before they even started talking. Surely they can see everybody in the group is pondering various scenarios in which they murder this individual, each scenario more gory and disturbing than the last. Yet they seem oblivious to how tedious they are and just keep talking.

mini-moan: griping and moan

How do they get away with it?
Surely it is illegal for Supermarkets to stick the words 'Ripen at home' on a punnet of Nectarines or a bunch of Bananas? More accurately it should read 'Stay completely unripe for a week and then suddenly become utterly rotten at home'.

I'm willing to bet nobody has successfully ripened any 'Ripen at home' fruit at their abode. Each day you pick-up that peach, give it a gentle squeeze, a breeze block would be softer, you return it to the bowl upset that you won't be supping on the sweet fruit. After several more days of this you approach the bowl, pick up the fruit and your hand is moist and slimy, you rotate the fruit and discovered it is now completely rotted and covered in mould.
After many years of this you've learned the error of your ways and instead decide to not bother ripening. You take a bite and crack 4 of your teeth on the granite like peach.
Finally you give-up. Fruit isn't that nice anyway, what's a bit of scurvy between friends?

mini-moan: it's my view

Can someone explain to me why when you get a splash on your glasses it's never at the edge out of sight but right in the fecking middle so all you can see is a big smeary splodge?
The law of averages would say that at least some of the time the splash would hit the 33% of your glasses that doesn't really matter because your peripheral vision isn't that useful. Yet 99.999% of the time it's always right in front of the pupil so you can't help but look through a blurry lens while searching for the nearest sink so you can give your glasses a wash.


It's almost as if the optician has smeared a substance right in the middle of my glasses that attracts debris and water just to be a twat.

mini-moan: show some restraint.

Today it was decided that rather than go through the hassle of cooking,  the new Laboratoire kitchen is still far from fully operational, dinner would be prepared by the experts at Toby Carvery. How can you go wrong? A choice of up to 4 meats and unlimited quantities of 8 different vegetables for a mere £5.95.  Plus for an extra £1.50 you can go 'King', that's extra meat an extra Yorkshire pudding and 2 Chipolatas. How could I refuse.
But refuse I should have done (I know, terrible grammar), for a meal fit for a 'King' it was not and instead of even more delicious meat I had even more tough, grisly and completely tasteless meat. My larger plate merely allowed me to choose more tasteless and undercooked vegetables. And rather than eating more I left at least 50% of the bland and badly cooked food on my magnificently proportioned plate.

So I warn my reader (I didn't forget the 's'), if you are ever asked if you want to go 'King' turn around and leave, for anywhere offering such a service will likely disappoint with spectacularly large portions of substandard and inedible food.

And I haven't even mentioned the 20 minute queue for the food that stretched across the building.

mini-moan: just can't see it

Today while checking my Facebook news feed I discovered that a colleague, who I will not name for his own privacy, had joined the Rachel Riley Appreciation Society (the maths genius from Countdown). Yes, I'll agree that Rachel Riley is an attractive woman, but does there really need to be a 'Rachel Riley Appreciation Society' which contains numerous pictures of RR wearing short skirts and dresses? With posts such as

Rachel Riley back in a dress showing off that tight little bum

I'm a man that appreciates an attractive woman, and maybe if I had friends I would discuss the attractiveness of women with them, but this is a bit much isn't it?
Perhaps RR is a really nice person, she's certainly very intelligent, so why focus on the fact she's reasonably attractive?

mini-moan: my friend al.

I've had a hard time of it lately, what with my Laboratoire being quarantined and the expense and upheaval of moving to a new Laboratoire. But why is it people go 'Are you alright?'? No actually, but now you've asked that question everything is fine and dandy. Pandas are dancing beneath rainbows while monkeys spoon ice-cream into my mouth and crocodiles massage my buttocks.
When you ask somebody that question all you do is annoy them. If you are really concerned about somebody take my advice. Sit down next to them and say nothing, when they ask you what you are doing reply 'I wanted some company', if they want to talk they will talk.

Can we please kill the phrase 'Are you alright?'?

This reminds me of an xkcd about parenthesis the ?'? looks deeply wrong.
http://xkcd.com/541/

mini-moan: fit for nothing

This would be a full moan but I don't feel up to it.
My, I feel really old, yes I am 647 years old, but now I officially feel old. Every single part of me aches, wrist, forearm, hip, shoulder, neck, knee, ankle and all due to a few games of Ten Pin Bowling.
What happened to me? When did I become so decrepit?
It seems like only yesterday I was gallivanting through corn fields (not really this is just a bit of poetic license) and today I am am crawling on my hands and knees screaming in agony when I lift a glass. Can't I just cuddle up on the sofa? Outside is overrated, it's full of diseases  and I believe it's dirty too, yes I can definitely see some dirt over there.

And a quick Laboratoire update. Things are progressing well and normal tgwmcm service should resume shortly.

mini-moan: stuart's process identity

For some reason I just keep doing stupid things. Not only do I do stupid things but I know in advance that the thing I am about to do is utterly unwise yet still I proceed.
It's bad enough doing something stupid without knowing the thing you are doing is foolhardy, but acting firm in the knowledge that it is utterly foolish and choosing to ignore every impulse that you should stop has to itself be an incredibly stupid thing, perhaps the most stupid of all stupid things.

Something to add to the list of stupid things that shouldn't be done;
Shouting at a Taxi driver that chose to block the road for 5 minutes and then being set upon by a lunatic. The most perfect of all moments punctuated by the phrase 'Leave it, he isn't worth it' (I felt like Phil Mitchell). Certainly not the smartest thing I have ever done, although not the most stupid thing I have done lately.
Perhaps I am destined to be a canine that howls in the arboretum.

mini-moan: untouchable

This is my first moan posted from the Android app so don't be too harsh if the spelling is even worse than normal.
Today I tried to open a bottle of sauce, to be precise it was a bottle of squeezy mayo. I say tried because it wasn't much of a success. The bottle had a plastic sealy thing that had to be removed and had a convenient pull tab. Well I pulled (which is highly unusual for me) but a thin film of plastic remained taunting me. I tried to removed it with my nails (which I am assured are creepily long), but the plastic layer refused to budge like a dog on a comfy chair. In the end I resorted to surgically removing the film with a sharp knife.
Is it really necessary to seal a bottle so well? When you buy an item from amazon does it need two rolls of parcel tape and a mile of bubble wrap and tissue paper?

mini-moan: i want to believe.

I wasn't expecting to moan today as I am taking some much needed time off while the reconstruction of the Laboratoire goes ahead (which is going to take a while) but today my blood has boiled so far over that I just had to post.

As the Laboratoire address is changing I had to set up a post redirection to ensure that any post sent to the old tgwmcm address will find it's way to the new tgwmcm address, you simply wouldn't believe how much fan mail I get (really you'd expect I'd get at least 1 item), but I do receive the occasional bill that requires my attention. So firstly I try to do this online, but perhaps for sensible reasons Royal Mail will only let you complete the online redirect process if your credit card billing address is the same as the old post address but my bank details were the very first thing I updated so they rejected the application for a redirect forcing me to drive to an actual Post Office (yes, they do still exist). When I get there I fill in the form hand over my passport and a utility bill with my old address and the woman behind the counter asked 'Where's your second utility bill'. What? So my passport and a utility bill aren't enough to prove my identity but a passport and two utility bills are? Those British passports sure are piss easy to forge but the technology to forge a gas bill and an electricity bill just doesn't yet exist, and forget about forging a phone bill, you must be living in a magical land if you think you can forge one of them.
Then the woman had the nerve to say 'It says you need two on the form', to which I replied 'The form that I just picked up 5 seconds ago, how could I have been so foolish?'

wwut: moan collation expert

I found this gem on the Subway website while registering my new SubCard. And to the individuals that wrote that - What were you thinking? I certainly hope they were deliberately trying to be funny and that nobody is mad enough to make such a remark while actually being serious.

I'm not trying to insult people that work in Subway, without them my Italian B.M.T wouldn't exist, but where do we draw the line? Is the person replacing the toilet tissue in the lavatory a 'Consumable Replacement Specialist'? Maybe the person that places the reduced labels on items in the supermarket is a 'Reduction Application Co-ordinator' (this has just given me the inspiration for another moan).
I'd personally describe the people in  Subway as 'Sandwich Construction Engineers', and the one that served me today as 'Unbelievably Spotty'.

mini-moan: put a pony in your pocket

I've just seen a SEAT advert that proudly boasted 'Enjoyneering' that I can only conclude is meant to be a portmanteau (for my less educated and or more Lithuanian readers) of Enjoy[ment] and Engineering. This is meant to conjure up the image that every part of a SEAT has been engineered to give you maximum enjoyment, and you thought that was a cigarette lighter.
But all these stuawk (stupid and awkward) marketing phrases just make me think of Dell Boy polishing his aunties pen. Would you purchase a car because of the fine enjoyneering that ablifies you? I guesstimate that you would not irregardless of how much of a prosumer you are.

Well I can't spend all evening moambling (moaning and rambling), I've got sexercising to do while thinking about celesbians. This is of course a lie, I have nothing better to do than moambling and there will certainly be no sexercising.

mini-moan: stay out of the kitchen.

Holy balls it is hot outside, really hot, so hot that it is incredibly uncomfortable, my underpants from yesterday actually threw themselves out of the window as they couldn't take it any more.
The problem is the sunshine is nice but the heat is bad, what we need to do is find a way of making the sun cold, all the joys of a sunny day coupled with the refreshing feel of a snow.

Unfortunately work on the 'tgwmcm Weather Control Device' has ground to a halt since the Laboratoire was abandoned last week and many key individuals in the division did not make it out alive. Hopefully by next summer I will be able to bring the world to it's knees as I mould the climate to my every whim, entire nations will collapse and world leaders will do my bidding. A man can dream.

mini-moan: enough already.

Don't you just hate those people that won't stop posting on Facebook? Every time you open Facebook to check your News Feed it's just filled to bursting with posts from a single person, worst of all really boring crap you don't care about. What makes it particularly irksome is you miss out on interesting stuff from people you care about while trying to filter the countless links and Youtube videos you have absolutely no interest in.
It's these inconsiderate individuals that ruin the internet for the rest of us. I wish they'd just bugger off.
It wouldn't be acceptable if someone just sat down next to you while you were busy and started talking nonsense. Who would do something like that? You'd have to be pretty dim if you didn't understand that isn't normal behaviour, but for some reason it's fine to do the same on the internet.

Announcement: and then you went and spoiled it all

I've got terrible news reader of my blog but I've had to call off my talent search and that means there will not be a special guest blog.

You may recall that there was an incident at the Laboratoire in which an individual tried to deliver a fluid sample in an unsanctioned manner. Despite a team of expert cleaners working round the clock to decontaminate the area apparently they were not completely successful and some specimens remained on the carpet.

Last week a team of scientists working at the tgwmcm Laboratoire were experimenting with turning the power of moaning into a renewable power source that would never be exhausted, there was a mishap during an early test and a minor radiation leak occurred. Normally this wouldn't have mattered but this radiation reacted badly with the 'fluid' that had not been thoroughly cleaned and resulted in the creation of an abomination that soon rampaged through the Laboratoire destroying all in it's path.

At the tgwmcm Laboratoire we take safety seriously and there are numerous safety features built into the fabric of the Laboratoire, many of them unique and far beyond the technological abilities of mere human, to bring such scenarios to a safe conclusion,  yet even these were not enough to contain the beast that was unleashed. A crack team were sent in to deal with the 'incident', non of whom made it back, so the decision was made to activate the Laboratoire self-destruct and encase the area in an impenetrable fast setting gel that would ensure that the destruction would finally be contained.

As you can imagine this has had a terrible impact on the operations of tgwmcm and it will take some time to construct a new Laboratoire.

daily life: if you can't say anything nice

When I was just a young deity growing up on my home planet of Moanania I had a pretty difficult childhood. To say I was bullied at school is an understatement, certain individuals devoted their every moment to tormenting and to breaking me. Somehow I managed to get through that time without my nose being broken, though they certainly tried their hardest.
People say that such an experience makes you stronger, that if you manage to get through such a difficult childhood you become a better individual for it. To them I say bollocks, such an experience changes you completely, no child goes through that without being severely damaged.
Because you've been subjected to such awful and hurting remarks it's often difficult to know when you say something that is merely an innocent jibe or a deeply hurtful remark.
Because you expect everybody you meet to dislike and hurt you instead you attempt to protect yourself by projecting an impenetrable exterior that actually forces people to dislike you.
Because you've been an outcast you have no idea how to socialise with others.

I often wonder what my life would be like if I hadn't been destroyed by my childhood. What would I be doing? Who would I be with? Where would I be? I can only hope that somewhere in an alternate universe there exists a me that didn't have a childhood like mine and instead became a successful, sociable individual surrounded by people that love him and that I eventually invent a machine that let's me switch places with him.

mini-moan: you are all doing it wrong

For many, many, many years I've had numerous comments along the lines of 'Are you left handed?' or 'I didn't know you were left handed!', and the reason for this is despite being a righty I use my fork in my right hand and and knife in my left hand. And my response is always 'You do far more work with the fork so why would you hold it in your left (weaker) hand?'.

People of the world, you are all doing it wrong, all you righties should hold the fork in your right hand, and all the lefties in the left hand, but no, you are all doing it backwards and making my life more difficult because  when I sit down in a restaurant .etc. all the forks are placed on the wrong side of the table and I have to switch them about, this would also be annoying for left handed people but I don't care about them because being left handed is just weird. 

Why can't they just wrap the knives and forks in a napkin and place them in the middle so everybody can organise their place setting how they want?

It doesn't need to be this difficult.

mini-moan: define 'definition'

Today while travelling down the A299, oh how I miss driving down the A299, I noticed a sign moving past me at exactly 70 miles per hour, or more precisely a sign while my motorised vehicle was moving at exactly 70mph for that is the speed limit of the A299. Anyway the sign read 'Prohibited Traffic [this way]'. What? If you want the traffic to go down the road then it can't be 'Prohibited' for the word means;

Formally forbid (something) by law, rule, or other authority.

Or perhaps it's a new way for the government to raise money and just down the road, out of sight, are a crack team of police ready to capture any individuals who has chosen to ignore the rule prohibiting them and slap them with a MASSIVE FINE, certainly an imaginative way to solve the budget deficit.